Highly sensitive temperature sensor based on an isopropanol-filled photonic crystal fiber long period grating

A high sensitivity measurement method for temperature has been proposed and investigated based on an isopropanol-filled photonic crystal fiber long period grating (PCF-LPG). Due to the high thermo-optic coefficient (TOC) of isopropanol, the sensitivity of the proposed temperature sensor could be effectively improved by filling isopropanol in the air waveguides of PCF. It can be found that the resonant dip will be split in two dips after filling isopropanol and the two dips have different sensitivities to surrounding temperature. Because of PCF-LPG is sensitive to the refractive index (RI) of internal filled liquid, the isopropanol-filled PCF-LPG temperature sensor has a high sensitivities of 1.356 nm/°C in the range of 20-50 °C. The simplicity and the excellent performance of our proposed device make it potential for the applications of high-precision temperature measurement is required.